Heat spilled from the sky, and lazily across the endless black stretch of road in undulating waves. A grey mass plotted south to blot the sun’s assault, slowly as can so vast a force.
This cloud brought a particular gloom, conquering the eery blue of brighter days with broad abandon. It was a singular interest in the vast black duny waste.
Then the stench of rot wafted through woven cloth and into twitching nostrils.
Anders pulled the scarf from his face, and the Butcher from its sheath across his back. Another sniff and couple steps around the carcass of a car put three corpses before him, strewn across what might be taken for an arena.
A bus covered the far side west, which at a glance looked empty, with some cylinders of cement rolled off to bar the north. The man nearest faced toward them, or what of it was not blown out with whatever clean shot had kissed his skull. The second lay similarly blasted from at the neck, his head twisted and rolled past where rotted flesh released its shattered vertebrae.
‘They’re killed so fast.’
Anders turned to a woman. ‘Not by you.’ He watched a flash of anger light her eyes, before they snapped somewhere behind.
Butcher shot to attention as he spun, catching the screaming cheek of this leaping dunce. With a screech he collapsed, his hand recoiling from a knot of gnarled cement spines warped into a fist around his own. Fingers pawed the flap running his jaw, before arriving at a gush behind the ear.
‘They were cruel.’
‘Cruel.’ He returned to face her. ‘Cruel enough to feed you.’
Another flash, then coolness as she stared. ‘Now I’m alone.’
‘Cruel enough to kill for you.’ Anders took a step toward her. ‘To waste for you.’
She matched him, plucking a pouch which jingled in her toying hand. ‘The road’s hard.’ With a second step he watched the pouch return to its pocket, and a newly freed hand reach gently out. ‘I can ease your load.’
A hard boot sent her crashing against the car’s door at her back. She collapsed with a moan as he approached, and stooped to take the rounds. Her hand rose again to touch his face, with knuckles bared. He swung to parry the blow, which fell limp to the cracked asphalt.
Anders went to stand but paused, such was a scream which played through flapping flesh somewhere behind. ‘How many loads you eased?’
A single finger drifted out in answer. He drew close to meet her burning gaze, within its well scorched furnace.
‘No.’
Triumphant the sun beamed, now uncontested in his azure kingdom. Only a specter lifted at a distance, of road and silhouettes of sands.
This heat draws soul from barren earth, thought Anders, before a reaching bridge offered the mercy of its shade. It was close, and indeed spared the blaring heat. Anders approached the threshold, while shadows carved from darkness in his spoiled sight.
Not much was revealed within the underpass, a single distant truck alone worth any note. Except what struck him in turning, figures committed to the bridge’s rounded wall.
In crimson, and in fact a single figure, always with a crown about her head. She danced, and sung, stretched and crouched to pick a single flower. But there, centered and foremost she towered, hand offered and ring around her bloody visage.
‘I envy you.’
Anders did turn, back to the truck, her other nether hand clutching his mind.
‘I envy all chosen to join her.’ The truck was buckled with the weight, and whined as he left it.
‘You keep this shrine.’
‘I do.’ The keeper stalked forward, his huge paunch somewhat staggered.
Anders fingered cold steel, then settled on the Butcher. 8 rounds and still likely a fight, better to strike true. ‘Alone.’
‘She giveth as she taketh.’ Rings of metal he drew, and rolled over his mighty knuckles. ‘At her pleasure.’ He was close, and deliberate as one must be as such a might.
‘You knew her.’
‘I know her well.’
Ten paces, closing faster.
‘In life.’
‘She takes many forms.’
Five, and looming with every one.
‘You took hers.’
‘It was ordained.’ Two, and then he swung.
The armored right came first, and the other to hook as Anders ducked to send his own after the Butcher.
With pommel braced he lunged under the closing fists, sending the blade from deep past navel to hip before it caught and left his dashing grasp.
The shrine’s keeper teetered, and as a coil of gut escaped the gash collapsed.
Anders approached again, pinning fat flinching fingers to brace for a hard yank. Three it took to free the blade, replete with bloody flourish.
Filth poured from the giant, whose desperate moan stirred nothing in his lady. Anders left him, making back toward the truck. His life would capture no such beauty.
Boots kicked swirls of migrant sand with every step, beside a line of mammoth craters reaching asphalt now and again, where winds had left enough elsewhere. That was much man indeed to roam these arid lands.
Anders raised his head, to face a line of balls arrayed atop a rock behind the truck. No, not balls.
Skulls they were, half a dozen and more in perfect order. He read them until the end, where was described a fairer breed resting at the rock’s crown. And beside were nestled tiny shattered fragments, carefully preserved.
A swarm rose from the west, set forth to swallow all. On furious winds rode the sandy cavalry, recruiting more with every mile.
Anders ran, then sprinted down the road. The sun’s campaign had conquered past its season, and now at last the earth summoned reply. He needed cover.
Dust rose, thwarting his every darting glance. Nothing, but nothing back, so straight at the wall he went with cloth drawn tight, and goggles tighter. Futile measures in these storms, and by any measure this fury particularly, as rushing sands swelled ever fiercer.
Then the sun was swallowed, and a wild vanguard thrusting at the skin. Anders ducked away to burrow in a dune, a miserable lot, if not so fatal.
But then just around a mound, between raised arms for better arms than face where cloth failed to defend there was at last a car. Or truck, or suv, or really somewhat of its own class, and of the roofed variety, by any luck.
At a dive he left the savage sands, which rushed to capture what they could before the rusty gate screamed shut behind. Content there Anders remained to watch endless legions rush the windshield, until a nagging dispatch won its audience.
Stinging grains peppered his arms, a recipe for flies. Plucking grains was slow and messy work though, and remembering his place Anders sought a finer tool.
With a punch the glove box fell, spilling shit across the floor. His hand sifted the essentials of a distant vapid life, before grasping a rounded disk which snapped open with a puff.
Beneath that foremost implement of vanity lay the cracked foundation upon which man had built the world. Anders caught a darkening glimpse of one through goggles and the mirror, somewhere hidden from the warring waste. Built, and so readily burnt it.
Glass shattered somewhere near. A rock followed, or rather fist of rubble, and nearly met its mark.
Anders left to a third’s shattering behind somewhere, and a fourth before he crossed the limits of this latest fortress. It was not the first, or second. Nor even the first or second day of such petitions. Smells of salt and life which kissed the ocean offered welcome, then consolation then mockery, the truest face.
Mall after warehouse after mansion on a hill had proved hostile or stripped and vacant, so thorough were the many roving bands which roamed outside the castles. Sacksons they were called, and Sackson must a lone man be, or else short for this world on their brutal account. A pity perhaps, if far greater risk, and ever more with mouths to feed already.
So a lone man wandered the coast, awaiting death. For this was indeed the end of the road.
A blur whizzed past, piercing some patch of dirt with a dull thud. Anders followed its path back to a building with its great misnomer, once awash in gaudy neon. Above the Gentle was a waving girl with bow in hand, and beside her some lithe companions, all the same.
‘Grab that arrow, handsome.’ The girl was calmed with a touch, from she who spoke with golden hair. ‘We don’t waste here.’